Case Mod - Complete Bladerunner 2049

This is the second mod my son and I are working on together, the first mod we did together was a Camaro themed build and was 100% my sons concepts. This time its my turn to choose the theme so what better than my favourite film Bladerunner. I have been watching all the news and hype surrounding the sequel to the film and am now very excited to see how the plot possibilities pan out.

I have been in and out of hospital receiving treatment for the last months which has rekindled my love for modding as less mobile. While in the hospital for a week bored out of my mind I taught myself how to make the origami unicorn from Bladerunner. That was when I started thinking about a concept for a build. Normally you might think a Bladerunner theme would be jet black with red accents with perhaps a grungy dark distopion feel to match the atmosphere of the first film. I suppose I just liked the metallics of the unicorn and decided to go with a more cleaner metallic feel more inline with the new film and with the origami.

There are no sponsors for the build sadly so have managed to scrounge about for parts in the garage and buy in what I could to get the ingrediants for mix. Using a Thermaltake Core V21 as the case and I think nearly all the main manufactures of watercooling parts for the cooling a real colab affair!

I really do love the Thermaltake Core v21 as it is such a dynamic case with its swap-able modular sides and front leaving lots of variation options for the enthusiast and designed for a matx system.

The other driver for this build is showing your respect to your elders, my son took a lot of inspiration from Jp Modifieds work on his design, so we talked about who did I look up to in the modding world? I still think today my favourite casemod is still Orac 3. Its the case that got me into modding and blew my mind as to what was possible. Back then it was all flashing fans (back in fashion) and what you could do with a beige case.

So the goal Bladerunner with hints of Orac as a bit of a love letter to Gnome

Was tempted to make a start on the case today but my son and I do the modding together and it would not be fair while hes away so minor task instead. Took apart the ram sticks and gave the heatspreaders a good scuff and tack to give the primer coat some grip. Two coats of primer then a wait for 6 hours and two coats of Chrome.

My son came back yesterday from his trip away so we got 3 coats of primer on the rad. Today the new trailer for the film came out so got excited again and did two coats of chrome, fans to strip down next and chrome up!

Well very frustrated yesterday was to windy outside to do any spraying and today is very wet up north! I am heading to a local body repair shop in the morning to see if they will rent me a spray booth so I can get on with spraying all the fans and the case. The Thermaltake core V21 has a side window installed already which is acrylic. I already own another of the v21's and intended using a window on each side leaving the top mesh. I'm now in two minds to widen the pre installed window as much as possible and install a glass finish without tint rather than stay with the original. I think ill leave that decision until the very end to see what looks best. Fingers crossed tomorrow I can get a spray booth organised.

Dylan stripped down the Corsair AF120's and prepped them for painting. I made him watch Bill Owens tutorial vid on the 120's on youtube first, what a great vid simple and accurate so good a 10 year old could do it! Dylan then gave the fans 3 coats of primer.

Waiting now for the primer to harden before hitting them with two coats of chrome followed by two clear coats which will hopefully give them a nice shine.

Important lessons learned today (always a school day modding) Dont use clear coat on top of a chrome effect. As you can see the rad does not have a clear coat sprayed on and looks much more chrome the fans on the other hand had 3 coats of primer two of chrome. We then added one clear coat on top and as you can see it has dulled it to a flat silver at best. The clear coat does create a nice gloss but not the desired effect for this mod.

After a LOT of trials getting the chrome look as close as possible I think we are getting there. Alphacool rad with 2 X AF120's.
Really hard work getting chrome to look okay out of a can, a warning to anyone trying it do not use a clear coat on top or it will dull the finish badly.

Well been a week or so since we posted any updates, things have been changing behind the scenes with two offers of sponsorship for the build so the hope of finishing this with the boy in the holiday is on hold while we wait for some new parts to come.

The motherboard armour is something that wont change however so we have set to work planning and crafting. The cables will all screw into the housings after they are drilled into the acrylic plate. on the under side of the armour i'm using a rubber sealant just to make sure non of the fittings can come into contact with the board.

Hey Bill, no ive not let him watch it yet. Tbh Its a bit of a jump in content from Star wars and a few adult themes that he just wouldn't get. Ive let him watch the trailer for the new film and we have a wall as a project board covered in printed stills ive taken from the film so he gets it.

Its been on hold for a few weeks as a couple of companies saw the log and took pity on our scrapheap parts so the case is getting swapped out and a few extra bits and bobs going in. With it being school holidays over here hes been keen to get at it but the new case should arrive next week so just time enough for him to spray and dremel before back to school

Corsair air240 so will fit well with the theme, but will present issues with airflow as I still want to keep visuals on both sides plus top so will have to see what models of 80mm fans for the rear that are as silent as possible, ive not used an 80mm fan for about 12 years so im hoping they dont all sound like a 50cc motorbike now

Cheers for the zoo stuff, will post my log up once this case arrives tuesday.

Well its been a while since we had any updates, Corsair got in touch after seeing the build log and took pity on us We have been waiting on these parts arriving before we could make any real progress on the build. The case we are now using is the Air240 which will be fun to use as its a case we have not had in our hands before.

The only fun part will be proving enough airflow into the case as normally the air240 utilises the side panels for fans and we intend to make both sides into windows as well as the roof. The rear of the air240 has minimal space being such a small case for fans but hopefully we can source a solution.